I never played wc1 on pc, only on sega cd back in the day. I recall the people actually talking out loud, but when i play the game on this after i downloaded it, there is no speech, just the text of what they say. Is this just how the pc version was or is there a fix?

You are correct that's just the way the PC version is. If you care about the other games I listed what they support.

WC - no speech
WC2 - Speech for the intro
WC3 - FMV
WC4 - FMV
WCP - FMV
Privateer - full speech
Privateer 2 - FMV

Regarding Wing Commander II, there was a speech pack, but I don't think it's included in the GOG release.

It is included but it only adds speech to the intro in-flight communications and a smattering of select cutscenes throughout the game. Adding speech to the whole game would have required a mountainous pile of floppy disks back in 1991.

[url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cjLDi8LD9Es[/url]

The Sega-CD version had speech. Apparently there are programs out there for extracting the speech from the sega-cd version.

http://hcl.solsector.net/

Not sure if anyone has made a mod though to patch the speech into the PC version.

+1 vote for full speech pack ported from any of the official sources or fan-made